second nature
by i AM the Random Idiot
Summary: [replicanaminé]  Because loving you just comes second nature to me. A collection of oneshots based on false memories and falser emotions.  [welcome to hell.  we’ve been waiting for you.]
1. to the end

**second nature**

(replicanaminé) Because loving you just comes second nature to me. A collection of one-shots based on false memories and falser emotions. (say goodbye to the hearts you break and all the cyanide you drank.)

(a/n) so now I'm doing another collection of another pairing. what? it's for loren's birthday, okay? because she's awesome like that. seriously. inspired also by mcr's "to the end." flipping love that song, kthx.

(blanket disclaimer) never ever gonna be mine. by the way, if kairiku is the old-school love, this pairing is the new-school love. fo' sho'.

_**xxx**_

_(i) __**to the end**__ (for loren)_

_If you marry me, would you bury me? Would you carry me to the end?_

You don't know who she is. You don't even know what she is.

You don't know the word "angel" yet.

xxx

You hate this castle. Though you have never known any other place, though this is what some might term your _home_, for you it has never seemed a birthplace so much as a coffin.

You were created here. You live here now. You will die here.

Probably soon.

At least you can share your tomb with an angel.

xxx

_(say goodbye to the vows you take)_

"I'll protect you. I promise."

But when the Savage Nymph beats her until the black-and-blue-and-red stands out against her pale skin like a child's fingerpaints—

But when you come back from training with the Cloaked Schemer tired and aching and bleeding and bruised and she is huddled against the wall with a notebook stained scarlet but not with her crayons—

But when you reach out to her and she cringes away from your touch—

What have you been protecting her from?

xxx

_(say goodbye to the life you make)_

No more will you remember the times she has forced an unfamiliar smile onto her face to make you feel as though you've done something right.

No more will you remember the touch of her gentle fingers on your face as she dressed your wounds with linen bandages and a kiss for good luck.

No more will you remember when she asked your name, and when you had no answer to give, she had replied, "Well, I'll just have to call you my Prince Charming, I suppose."

No more.

Now you only know blue sky and blue sea and warmth and sand and light and dark. Shooting stars. People you've never known. A name and a face that do not belong to you.

But the same angel.

And the same promise.

And you tell yourself that's all you need.

xxx

_(say goodbye to the hearts you break...)_

Even then, it isn't enough.

Your angel is beautiful and your angel is perfect and your angel has plunged her hand into your chest and pulled out your raw, beating heart and calmly crushed it before your very eyes.

Your angel has killed you.

You won't let it be so.

So you gather up your heart's pieces and you sew them together with your devotion and your love and your _promise_. Because you don't break a promise. Even if your promise has already broken you.

xxx

_(and say goodbye)_

You could leave her.

_(and walk away)_

You should leave her.

_(and say goodnight)_

But you won't.

xxx

_(to the hearts you break and all the cyanide you drank)_

You were created in a tank. You were raised by fallen scientists. You can rattle off the molecular composition of every organic compound known to humankind.

You didn't drink from that vial out of ignorance.

And while fire spreads from your mouth to your veins to your limbs to your brain, you find your angel and you press your deadly lips to hers, dripping with fire and ice and obsession and devotion and love and undiluted potassium cyanide. Her eyes widen...but she doesn't pull away.

And like tragic lovers of old you die in each other's arms, holding on tightly and tasting each other's fire, walking hand-in-hand to your graves.

_I'll marry you. I'll bury you. I'll carry you to the end._

_**xxxFINxxx**_

(a/n) ...wow. umm...happy birthday?


	2. queen of the damned

**second nature**

(replicanaminé) Because loving you just comes second nature to me. A collection of one-shots based on false memories and falser emotions. (welcome to hell. we've been waiting for you.)

(a/n) umm. uuuummmm. this was going to be done in september after I did a paper on the salem witch trials. then it was going to be done in time for halloween.

well, happy thanksgiving.

_**xxx**_

_(ii) __**queen of the damned**_

_**xxx**_

_(witch)_

Black jagged lines run down crisp white pages. They break chains and stab deep into hearts and minds and memories—light on shadow on light. Lines curve into the shape of a face, and a name falls from lips for the first time. Lines rip across photorealistic landscape and eradicate a world.

Between the pen and the sword, the sword never had a chance.

..x..

_(devil-mark: a mark placed on a witch by Satan to mark her as his own)_

So pretty, the one says, the one who brought her here and whispers to her promises of broken chains and captive heroes and sunsets that she will never ever see. So beautiful. So untarnished and pure.

She _is_ pretty. Her skin is pale and flawless, not a blemish to be seen. She bears no scars of servitude, never to bleed when pricked or hurt when harmed.

Or perhaps the marks are merely the kind that she can't see.

..x..

_(familiar: a companion)_

She's still drawing her chains around the limbs and throat of her hero, remembering the whispers of the others, remembering that he could be hers if she just sits down and shuts up and does as she's told. But inside, she secretly wonders, and perhaps she would fear if she could reach the bare parts of her soul not coated in numb witch-scar tissue cold to the touch:

Aren't heroes supposed to slay witches? Isn't that their job? If she truly wanted a companion, a helper, why was she reaching out to close her fingers around something that might sting? She's unsure, and it shows.

So she's given a new project. A break, they call it, a secondary assignment. A new application for her "special talents."

And when he walks in—

And when she touches his face gently with the tips of her fingers—

And when she puts pencil to paper, but can't draw a single line to capture his essence, his impossibly unchainable soul—

He reaches out and grips her hand. _Please_, he says. _Please, let me stay me. Please_. And she ducks her head and whispers in her barely used voice, _But if they find out—_

_They won't_, he assures her. _I can be your protector._ _I can be your companion_. _I can tell you things about the outside world. Let me be your eyes. _She can't say a word. She nods once.

_It's us and them now_, he says.

She hopes she isn't one of _them._

..x..

_(poppet: a small figure in the likeness of another, used to cast spells)_

He comes to her every moment he can, his eyes sparkling with some unfathomed feeling no matter how he is wounded or weary. He brings her tales of other parts of the castle, news errantly dropped from _their_ lips in his presence, and these comfort her, insomuch as she can be comforted.

Does it bother her that his love is a lie? Does it bother her that while he trains and trains to fight the hero, she sits and draws her pretty chains around the hero's pretty neck, the whip at his back and the carrot out in front, urging him on inexorably toward her and the one who loves her?

The question really is, _can_ it bother her? Or do the marks and scars on her soul run so deep that no blade of treachery can ever hope to bleed out her emptiness? As the others toy with their prey before the kill, has she adopted a plaything now? Perhaps she is one of _them_ after all.

Even knowing this, even as she landscapes his heart for him despite their deal, even as she binds him to her with the chain that may be his noose, she is still cold, and she still shows no sign of pain.

..x..

_(black mass)_

Heart on soul.

Skin on skin.

Black and white blended and mixed into all the shades of gray you like, and no one can tell them what is right and what they will burn for because they already live in Hell.

His warmth sears her and her cold chills him and it is wrong and it is wrong and it is perfect.

And maybe for that one second, she _could_ feel something.

Feeling was..._strange._

It hurt.

..x..

_(thou shalt not suffer a witch to live)_

Her chains are tightening and running out, link by link. The hero is coming and the lover is waiting and she has to make a decision.

She chooses.

And he dies.

Her chains crumble and the noose tightens and he is broken and he is nothing now, just a clay doll with pins stuck in it and a lock of hair tied around its neck.

He is dead. So is she.

She has been dead for a long time now.

..x..

_For want of a protector, the heart was lost._

_For want of a heart, the soul was lost._

_For want of a soul, the protector was lost._

_Welcome, child. Welcome to Hell._

_We've been waiting for you._

_**xxxFINxxx**_

(a/n) umm. uuuuuummmm. I've never written a sex scene before.

uuuummmmmm. I'm a wuss.


End file.
